Yahoo Gives Up Hope

Yahoo, the last living fossil of the internet dinosaurs, is coming to grips with its own mortality. The lumbering tech giant once bought 48 acres of land in Santa Clara for a massive office expansion. Now it's turning the land into a parking lot.

The land was purchased by Yahoo last decade, with Santa Clara approving a three million square foot, 13 building office park in 2010. But as the company fell on worse times, the project was put on hold.

Now that the Marissa Mayer-led corporate redesign and turnaround has failed to revive the company, Yahoo is paving over its expansion plans. According to the San Francisco Business Times, the 7,200-car parking lot isn't even intended to serve Yahoo employees—it's going to be used as off-site parking for Levi's Stadium.

City records show general contractor Devcon Construction Inc. submitted grading, paving and striping permits for parking lot improvements on the Yahoo site June 20. The San Francisco 49ers also show the parcel as one of the largest available lots on the team's interactive parking website. A team spokesman told me that the 49ers had reached an agreement with the property owner earlier this year.

The move suggests Yahoo remains in no hurry to build, which is perhaps not surprising given that the Internet pioneer has been shrinking, not growing, its real estate footprint in recent years.

If being a parking attendant does pan out, Yahoo can always lease the land to Google.